Implications of the Paris Agreement for Biodiversity and Conservation Planning (IMPALA)

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Climate change creates risks to biodiversity, in particular by changing the climate in which species live, and making it unsuitable for them to continue to live there. In December 2014, under the United Nations Paris Agreement countries agreed to 'pursue efforts to ...limit the temperature increase to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels'. IMPALA seeks to understand these risks to biodiversity arising in a future world in which humans limit climate change to 1.5C warming compared to pre-industrial times, and to compare this with the situation when there is 2C warming (hereafter referred to as 1.5/2C). It seeks understand the relative risks both globally, and at the regional scale. Species also face a challenge in being able to track their preferred climate space across a landscape, both in terms of the speed of movement required and in dealing with natural and/or manmade obstacles to movement. Several previous studies have projected extensive range loss and increased extinction risks across large fractions of species globally or regionally due to climate change e.g. amongst 50,000 species studied, 57+/-5% of plants and 34+/-7% of animals are projected to lose over half their climatic range for a warming of approximately 3.6C above pre-industrial levels. But what difference does 0.5C make? Is there really much difference between 1.5C and 2C of warming when it comes to terrestrial biodiversity? Examination of the large-scale potential changes in climatic ranges of 80,000 species at 2C versus 2.5C suggests that there may be a large difference, at least in some parts of the world. These differences have the potential to put much of the past investment in conservation at risk. This study will look at the areas where it makes the most difference to constrain warming to 1.5 versus 2C, looking specifically at Global Protected Areas, and key conservation regions such as biodiversity hotspots. It will identify which Protected Areas are most, and least, at risk from biodiversity changes at 1.5 vs. 2C, and where corridors between protected areas would do the most good. IMPALA is designed to inform decision makers in the UK government and also within environmental NGOs, in particular World Wildlife Fund-UK. Environmental NGOs are interested in conservation planning, that is deciding which areas of the world need to be brought into the protected area network, or protected by other means such as working with local people to protect habitats for species. Since it is not possible to protect all natural ecosystems, NGOs and Governments need to prioritise, and climate change will affect that prioritisation by changing the places where species can live. IMPALA will inform WWF-UK, other NGOs, and Governments whether the existing protected area system is robust to warming of 1.5/2C, which areas are most at risk, and which areas act as refuges where species can still live after 1.5/2C global warming has occurred. IMPALA considers how species try to move to track climate change, and will also identify places that need to be protected to enable species to move and colonize new areas in response to climate change. Complicating the efforts to allow ecosystems (and biodiversity) to adapt naturally to climate change may be the efforts needed to hold climate change to 1.5C of warming. Many proposals to limit warming to 1.5 and 2C of warming require large areas to be converted to bioenergy crops. There is the risk that it may be necessary to convert large areas of primary/secondary forest and other ecosystems to bioenergy crops, so that agricultural land can continue to grow food. As habitat loss is a major factor in biodiversity loss, then it might potentially be worse for biodiversity at 1.5C warming than 2C warming. This study will look for win-win solutions for biodiversity and mitigation in order to promote Article 2 compliant mitigation - that is, mitigation that hinders neither ecosystems from adapting naturally and the production of food.